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I notice that the minister suggested that the scheme is not workable, not a proportionate response, might not improve animal welfare, could provide unwarranted assurance to buyers and could provide a front for those selling puppies in the illegal puppy trade. I know that the Government intends to amend the bill to take out that part, should the bill proceed to stage 2, but it would, to me, be doing a disservice to the stakeholders with whom I have worked and who support the registration provisions, because of the benefits that they believe a register of unlicensed litters would bring, if I did not continue to highlight the benefits of implementing this part of the bill—notwithstanding the Government’s position.

As I have said, should it be the position of members of the committee that they would support the general principles of the bill if part 2 were to be removed, I would strongly encourage them to consider the clear need to have some means of ensuring the traceability of puppies and to seek an assurance from the Government at stage 2 that progress would be made in that regard. I am, of course, alluding to a national microchipping database.

The minister mentioned the legal requirement for all dogs to be microchipped, and a central register of microchipped dogs would provide traceability and the other benefits associated with the registration scheme that I propose. That would be an alternative to part 2 of the bill. I hope that members have seen my letter to the minister regarding that. As I have already said, I have always felt passionate about the need to make best use of the legal requirement to microchip puppies, and I have promoted the clear associated benefits for a long time. People would be able to check whether a puppy was on the national microchipping register.

I want a registration scheme but, if a registration scheme was not acceptable to the committee, I would not want the bill at stage 1 to be sabotaged—I do not mean sabotaged; I mean fall by the wayside—because of that.

Obviously, I want a registration scheme. However, I say to Ariane Burgess that the approach would be discretionary. Importantly, the bill says:

“The Scottish ministers may by regulations prohibit the first owner”

from selling or advertising litters that are not subject to registration. The key word there is “may”. I am leaving the Scottish Government some flexibility to act at a suitable time, because I accept the economic pressures that are being placed on the Government and local authorities. I have to be realistic, because the bill’s primary purpose—I will bore you by repeating it—is to educate. Acquiring registration is an important part of that, and I am pleased that you support it. I put in that section of the bill because I think that registration is important, but, if push comes to shove and there is a push to cross-reference microchipping, I can see a way forward to satisfy us that there will be some traceability of puppies and dogs in Scotland. It may not be the best solution, but it is part of a solution.

The landscape would be more cluttered if the code were to be absorbed into what exists. I am decluttering the landscape.

What is the big issue? What is the biggest problem when people start to look after a dog as a pet? The problem starts from the moment that a person gets it. If a person gets the wrong pet in the wrong circumstances for the wrong reasons and they have not seen it with its mother, they will have problems from the start. Instead of dealing with welfare issues once people have a pet, we should really deal with them in advance of that.

On top of that, the legislation would require people to self-certify with the person who is transferring the dog to them. That person also has a job to do in that they have to say that they think that the buyer is the right person. A licensed breeder will do that in that a good one will check the buyer’s circumstances and will not let any Tom, Dick or Harry—it is not politically correct to say that, so I will say Tom, Dickess and Harry—get a dog.

People cannot just go into a rehoming centre such as the SSPCA and get a cat or dog. The centre will check the person’s circumstances and will not let them have an animal if it thinks they are the wrong person. That is the level at which a person who is not licensed and who is transferring a pet to someone will operate. The buyer will be involved in the conversation and, importantly, as far as is humanly practicable, will see that puppy with its siblings and mother. That will tell them an awful lot about how the animal has been brought up.

The certificate will say, “I’ve thought about all of that.” People might not always get it right, but it will mean that they pause to think about it. I am sure that anyone who is sitting around this table who was thinking of getting a puppy would do that. However, that is not the case for many people, for very good reason, as was highlighted during Covid. The bill will make sure that they would do what all of us here would do.

Yes. Actually, it was the SSPCA that brought the French certificate to my attention. It is not necessarily about prosecution or taking a dog away; it could simply be a matter of educating. We must look at that as something additional to what the SSPCA has.

As I have said, the thrust of the approach is not punitive; the thrust is getting people to educate themselves. When I introduced the original bill proposal six years ago, things were bad enough, but they have got worse. I hope that focusing on that at the beginning will mean a happy outcome for people who want the comfort of a pet dog and that it will also deal with online sales in which people do not know where the pet is coming from or the state that it is in.

The code is more than that; it is a case of a simple focused thing. I have already addressed in my opening statement the issue of the code being absorbed into the general codes. It would get lost in translation. I wanted to focus on the purchasing and acquiring of puppies in an uninformed fashion, which has been ancillary to an increase in puppy factory farms. That was not the only issue, but it was part of the issue. By making a simple code, we are dealing with a different cohort of people—people who, for good reason, want the company of a pet. We are making them focus on that. I hope that, with the code, the nature of the unlicensed puppy trade—if I may loosely call it that—will be changed.

After consultation with the various organisations that support the bill, I decided that those were the basic questions. There might be other questions that someone else might ask. For example, someone might have a medical condition and their abilities might deteriorate over time. The questions would be different for them. The bill includes basic questions that people often do not consider, and those are the simple ones that we should start with. Where am I living? Is this the right place for a dog? What is my family like? Do I have cats? Do I have another dog?

Some people even speak to a vet before they get a pet. You do not need to put that in the bill. The questions in the bill are what should be considered, and I thought that they were good starters for 10, as it were.

I wanted to keep the bill short, punchy and easily understood. If we want to educate people, we cannot blow the bill up and put too much in. As a former secondary school teacher, I realise that you can only teach so much in one lesson. I put in the questions that I thought were key. As I said previously, someone else might have additional questions, but the ones in the bill are the basics. It is up to the Government to add any other questions that it might consider, subject to their being within the ambit of what I already have in the bill.

It would be the responsibility of the transferor—the person who had the dog and was transferring it to the person who was acquiring it. The certificate would be their responsibility. They would not need to have the certificate all the time, but, if an issue arose, an animal welfare organisation such as the SSPCA, which might have received a call from someone who was concerned about the welfare of a dog in a household, could ask to see the certificate.

Today, everything can be done online, or you can print things out or get them at libraries, so you could demonstrate that you had the certificate. You are supposed to do it, but this is an educational issue—it is not punitive—so there might be circumstances in which the person has not done it. There is scope in the bill and in the criminal legislation—the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006—to make an allowance if somebody has not done it, provided that the reason is not malign and the person has been negligent in a sense, but not so negligent that they deserve to be penalised for it.

In my view, in all legislation—except in road traffic legislation and so on, in which the requirement is absolute—there should be flexibility in certain circumstances, but you would have to show why you did not know about it.

The certificate requirement is about making people aware so that they have read about and done what they are supposed to do. It is a physical demonstration that they know about and have done it. Given that it is not onerous, I think that most people will be pleased to do it and will think that it is a good idea.

Do I need a tin hat?

First, the Government has not undertaken anything in relation to microchipping. I seem to recall, convener, that you were on the Audit Committee in 2016—I might be wrong.